We Should Understand That All Is One

After writing the recent post about Twin flames, I wanted to follow-up with another post to clarify what I meant. Frankly often women are objectified no matter what they do, and these days men are as well. Often the reason ascetics avoid women is because the women make them “sin”. If you examine their reasoning carefully you will see that this is a very selfish and egotistical reason for being celibate. They have turned women into an object to be avoided. Instead of trying to understand people as people and letting go of our obsessions in doing so, we simply turn people into objects of consumption to satisfy our desires. The celibate objectifies women as a sin to be avoided and by doing so have committed the same sin as the individual who goes to a house of prostitution to get an object of desire, nothing more.

Some men seem to think that women are for pleasure or Kama, and if they think that they may as well be celibate. A relationship should be pleasurable, but it is far more than that. To truly communicate with another we have to let go of some of our own ego attachments. A true deep understanding of another can be a deeply transforming experience. Instead of becoming attached to this experience by claiming that it is special or a soul mate situation, we should realize that within all people is the Atman or god. God can be realized within our own being or it can be realized within another person. We should understand that all is one. All beingness reflects the sacredness of deity. It is all around us, within us, and within others. No one can be an object.

That being said I will speak about my own karmic experience. When I was twenty-nine years old, I sat down in meditation for a long time. When I stood up from that meditation, my whole life changed. I had the sudden realization that my entire relationship with my current husband consisted of me trying to change him. His parents had asked me to divorce him, but I had stubbornly held on where I simply did not belong. He had preferred the company of his parents to me and refused to compromise in anyway. I realized that I was fighting the wind. I left my husband with two small children to seek a different way of life. I picked up a book at the local library, and the guru suggested that we chant “Om Namah Shivaya” I did not even know how to pronounce the chant. Right away I began to have dreams about another person. I knew from my dreams that he was in the army and that he was Thai. I also knew what year he was born in. I also dreamed that he was in Germany at the time, which turned out to be true. On the day I met him I looked at the slowly rising moon in the opposite end of the sky as the setting sun and I realized that it was time. I walked down the sandy beach that evening and there he was. We went to a local disco and danced the night away. He was Shiva to me. I did not realize at the time that women worship Shiva to bring their perfect mate.
This man was by no means a perfect person. We would have many conflicts, and I would spend many painful hours in meditation trying to understand what they meant. It is a karmic relationship, which acts as a sander to the stubborn pieces of our personality that refuse mend. It is water to the riverbank or the mill to the corn. We have to realize that often conflicts in our life do reflect on our own inner weaknesses or themes that we work on in this lifetime.

I also realized from my divorce that my issues had come with me. I was carrying them around. I should not blame other people for what is in me. It was at this time that I made a vow that I would not divorce again. Stubbornness and pure grit got me through some times, and wore down the ego issues that I had been carrying around.

After fifteen years with this man, I had to say that I am a better person for having had this relationship. Some of my karmic issues would never have been resolved otherwise. I did think he was my soul mate, but it was he who pointed out that we could only be soul mates to god. It is ego that thinks that a special person waits for us when in fact all people are special. I have come to realize that I am complete within myself. This sense of completeness makes me a better mate than I used to be.